The evolution of USU’s Mental Health Week
Mental health week originated through individuals at Utah State who worked together to promote awareness and resources due to the crisis they saw on campus. It got off to a slow start in 2014 only to grow to a fully endorsed event by the administrators and student body of Utah State University.
Ty Aller, a licensed family and marriage therapist and graduate student, was the USUSA graduate director under the Graduate Studies Senator at the time he thought of mental health week. He and a couple others had an “in” to student involvement and worked through the graduate studies senator to promote resources for mental health and address the growing need at the university.
“When we first started, it wasn’t outwardly ostracized, it wasn’t outwardly no you can’t do this, but we couldn’t get people to talk to us about it. Like the people with money, the administrators, people you needed to get on board. It was hard.” Aller said.
Aller’s next steps were to show the university through their own efforts that this needed to happen and people needed to know about it.
“So the first week we did was a rag-tag thing. We had workshops with graduate psychology students that were self help type things, we had a mental health fair where we invited a lot of people from the community in health services to come and talk with students in the sunburst lounges. We had motivational speakers come which had a great outcome.” Aller said.
The following year only lead to more funding and more promotion across campus. Aller was elected as USUSA graduate studies senator and was able to write mental health week in his charter.
“I was really passionate about continuing those types of things so I was able to get it passed in the grad study senator charter that mental health week should be a required piece.” Aller said.
Aller and then-USUSA President Trevor Olsen were able to form a committee tasked with planning Mental Health Week every year.
“From that point on it was me and Ty tag-teaming and we found student groups that were really excited about it,” Olsen said.
Rachael Fresh, a president’s cabinet member under the Olsen and who worked side by side with Aller and Olsen, said “when Ty Aller and the Student Body President made it such a big deal, that’s when everyone got on the same page. I think it’s important to recognize that this was the first step we ever took to addressing mental health week as a culture at Utah State.”
Olsen was also President of the Utah Student Association, an organization comprised of student body presidenrs from all Utah colleges. As president, Olsen was able to get the group talking about mental health across the state.
“Most of the officers had some personal interaction with mental health, whether it was personal or someone they knew around them,” he said. “So everyone seemed to really get on board with it.
Policies were changed, legislation was set in place for the next student body officers and, in 2017, mental health was declared a statewide crisis.
Fresh is overjoyed that the week still stands as a tradition. “This was our first step to addressing the issue and so I think it’s amazing that it’s still a tradition because it’s important to recognize how far we’ve come.”